PITTSBURGH (Newsradio 1020 KDKA) - Organ donation has become a way of life but sometimes getting the organ when you need it can be a challenge.
This has led to people taking to social media at a hockey game or posting online they need help.
Dennis McCarthy needed a kidney so he took to Facebook to ask for help and a stranger, Heidi Hamilton saw the post and told him he could have one of hers.
McCarthy tells KDKA Radio’s Lynne Hayes Freeland he was on dialysis but he was beginning to have various health problems and knew he needed a kidney.
“I knew if I didn’t get a kidney soon these conditions would get worse which would probably wind up causing me either death or having a stroke or having other illnesses.
McCarthy was convinced by friends to post something on Facebook and that’s where his “angel” Heidi comes in.
“I just went to my boss that day and I said, ‘I think I’m going to get a living organ donor’ and she’s like ‘oh okay’ and she’s like ‘I got the perfect person from you’ . . . and it just snowballed from there,” said Hamilton.
McCarthy says he will probably be thanking Hamilton for the rest of her life but she says she wanted to keep the donation “on the down-low . . . I wanted to give him a gift and I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but here we are, making a big deal out of it.?
Hamilton adds it makes her happy that she was able to give McCarthy a second chance.
The kidney has not been rejected and McCarthy says the doctors tell him it’s uncommon that two strangers would be so compatible for organ donation.
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